At Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah, Stephanie Kyriazis (GIP) is excavating for fossils in the field. (NPS Photo by Stephanie Kyriazis, GIP)

Anthony Menicucci, Paleontology GIP, lifting a slab of limestone in the research quarry at Fossil Butte National Monument, Wyoming. (NPS Photo by Andrew Menicucci, GIP)

Paleontology GIP Anthony Menicucci examining fragments of limestone from the Green River Formation for fossils exposed on the surface in Fossil Butte National Monument, Wyoming. (NPS Photo by Andrew Menicucci, GIP)

Taormina Lepore (GIP, Fossil Butte National Monument, Wyoming) us recording data in a logbook at the research quarry. (NPS Photo by Taormina Lepore, GIP)

GeoCorps Intern Win McLaughlin, John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, Oregon, showing off part of a rhino tooth after chiseling it out of a sandstone deposit near Pineville, Oregon. (NPS Photo by Win McLaughlin, GIP)

GIP at John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, Oregon, Win McLaughlin, ready to begin prospecting through sediment in order to look at the paleosols. (NPS Photo by Win McLaughlin, GIP)

GIP, Win McLaughlin, trying to relocate old fossil localities from the 1950's, for John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, Oregon. (NPS Photo by Win McLaughlin, GIP)

In Badlands National Park, South Dakota, Guest Scientist Christine Gardner is attempting to expose some of the teeth to properly identify the Merycoidodon skull. (NPS Photo by Christine Gardner, GIP)

Guest Scientist Amy Atwater, Denali National Park & Preserve, Alaska, standing next to a giant hadrosaur track, which is in the lower right corner of the photo (toes pointing down). (NPS Photo by Amy Atwater, GIP)

Kathryn Pauls Guest Scientist at Badlands National Park, South Dakota, explaining proper procedures to take when visitors encounter a fossil within the park boundaries. (NPS Photo by Kathryn Pauls, GIP)

The ‘Trio’, is the world’s only known petrified Redwood (Sequoia) clone, Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, Colorado. (NPS Photo by Cassi Knight, GIP)

The ‘Big Stump’, which measures 38 feet in diameter. This is not actually the largest stump in the Monument, which reaches 41 feet in diameter. Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, Colorado. (NPS Photo by Cassi Knight, GIP)

Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument's plesiosaur specimen on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. in the "Ancient Seas" exhibit. (NPS Photo by Jason Kenworthy)

Statue of young George Washington Carver sits ontop of Bulington-Keokuk Limestone with fossils of crinoids, brachipods, and corals at George Washington Carver National Monument, Missouri. (NPS Photo by Tim Connors)

Martin Lister's 1687 figure of Chesapecten jeffersonius, the first figured and described fossil from North America, likely collected near Colonial National Historical Park, Virginia. (Reproduced in Ward and Blackwelder, 1975 fig.1)